FAMILY INDEPENDENCE ADMINISTRATION Seth W. Diamond, Executive Deputy Commissioner

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1 FAMILY INDEPENDENCE ADMINISTRATION Seth W. Diamond, Executive Deputy Commissioner James K. Whelan, Deputy Commissioner Policy, Procedures and Training Lisa C. Fitzpatrick, Assistant Deputy Commissioner Office of Procedures POLICY DIRECTIVE #06-05-SYS WELFARE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (WMS) SOFTWARE RELEASE VERSION Date: March 21, 2006 Subtopic(s): Welfare Management System AUDIENCE The instructions in this policy directive are for all Welfare Management System (WMS) users in the Job Centers, Non-Public Assistance Food Stamp (NPA FS) Offices and ancillary sites. They are informational for all other staff. POLICY New York State s WMS is updated on a regular basis to reflect changes in City, State and Federal regulations. The WMS software release for migrated to production on March 20, SYSTEM ENHANCEMENTS WMS software release version includes the following changes: Removal of Alien Registration Number Requirement for Battered Aliens Assignment of New State/Federal Charge Code Value Aliens in First Five Years Change Language Spoken and Language Read Fields to Required Fields Extension of Public Assistance (PA) and NPA FS Case Closing Clockdown (Morel) Change to Spina Bifida Budgeting Automated Finger Imaging System (AFIS): Add New AFIS Exemption Indicator Value of P Fix to the Grant Breakdown (NQCS5J) Screen Edit Preventing Case Transfers to F15 HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS PROCEDURE? Call then press 2 at the prompt followed by 765 or send an to FIA Call Center Distribution: X

2 Removal of Alien Registration Number Requirement for Battered Aliens Currently, when the Alien/Citizenship Indicator (ACI) in Element 382 of the Turn-Around Document (TAD [LDSS-3517]) is B, an Alien Registration Number is a required entry in Element 381 of the TAD. As a result of MKB litigation, when the ACI code is B the alien registration number is no longer a requirement for eligibility. However, entry of a valid alien registration number will not result in a system error. This change applies to all PA, MA and NPA FS cases in Eligibility or Undercare. Assignment of New State/Federal Charge Code Value Aliens in First Five Years Criteria State/Federal Charge Code 60 (Maintenance of Effort [MOE] Countable Alien) is currently used to identify and claim MOE for Safety Net Assistance (SNA) alien cases containing children or pregnant women who are ineligible for Federal benefits due to their alien status. A new State/Federal Charge Code 68 (Qualified Alien Not MOE) has been developed for PA and MA, which will identify SNA alien cases that are ineligible for Federal benefits and do not contain children or pregnant women. Code 68 can be assigned to aliens residing in the U.S. for less than five years who: Are in receipt of medical assistance (MA) on a PA case or on an MA-only case; Do not meet the children/pregnancy criteria; and Have one of the following Alien Citizenship Indicator (ACI) codes: B Certain battered aliens who are the immediate relatives (spouse or child) of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident alien who have been battered or subject to extreme cruelty by the spouse or parent; F Persons granted conditional entry; G Persons paroled into the U.S. for at least one year; K Persons lawfully admitted for permanent residence; S Persons lawfully admitted for permanent residence who have worked or can be credited with 40 qualifying quarters of coverage as defined under Title II of the Social Security Act. Code 68 is valid for Eligibility, Undercare and Error Correction transactions at Job Centers. Conversion WMS will convert the State/Federal charge code to 68 for aliens on case types MA, SNCA and SNNC where individuals have an ACI code of B, F, G, K or S and there is no child or pregnant woman on the case. FIA Policy, Procedures and Training 2 Office of Procedures

3 Change Language Spoken and Language Read Fields to Required Fields Language Spoken and Language Read are not required fields for system-generated closings. Language Spoken and Language Read fields are not required entries for PA and NPA FS recertifications. HRA is mandated by the Ramirez lawsuit to provide notices to applicants/participants in the language they read. As a result, WMS Language Spoken and Language Read fields will be changed to required fields in order to support this mandate for the following: PA, MA and FS applications PA, MA and NPA FS Undercare reactivations PA and NPA FS Worker case updates (on the suffix level) MA-only recertifications The Language Spoken and Language Read fields will not be required for system-generated PA/FS eligibility transactions (e.g., FS separate determination or New York State Nutrition Improvement Project [NYSNIP] cases) when a PA/FS case is closed. Valid codes already present in these fields on the PA/FS case will be brought over to the NPA FS case. No error will result on the NPA FS case if there is no value on the PA/FS case. The Language Spoken and Language Read fields are not required entries for PA and NPA FS recertifications. However, high risk error messages will be displayed on the Continuing Eligibility Determination (CED) worksheet (WINR086) in the following instances: Enter Code for Lang Spoken will appear when there is no entry in the Language Spoken field. Enter Code for Lang Read will appear when there is no entry in the Language Read field. New codes for Urdu and Laotian In an effort to decrease the misuse of codes U (Urdu) and X (Laotian), the following replacements will be made: U will be replaced by B (Urdu) X will be replaced by 8 (Laotian) Entries of codes U and X are no longer valid and will result in an error. New choice for Language Spoken field Language Code O is being made obsolete. Code E (English) is being added to the choices of Language Spoken. If the preferred language is not known, E (English) must be entered. The code for Other language (O) is being removed as it does not contribute to the determination of the preferred language. FIA Policy, Procedures and Training 3 Office of Procedures

4 At least one field, Lang Spoken or Lang Read, is required during Error Correction data entry. The Lang (Language) field will be changed to Lang Spoken (Language Spoken) on the following WMS screens: Application Data Household Information (NAPP05) Batch Application (NBAP02) Pending Suffix Level Data (NQCP02) Case Composition Suffix/Individual Summary (NQCS01) MA Case/Suffix/Individual Summary (NQCS28) In addition, a Lang Read (Language Read) field will be added to the NQCS28 screen. Case Composition Individual Summary as of XX/XX/XX (NQCS3B) New Suffix Data (NUPD02) At the next TAD revision, the Lang field (Element 255) will be changed to the Lang Spoken field. Automated WMS update to Language Spoken and Language Read fields SDX update to WMS Language Spoken and Language Read fields Prior to the migration on March 20, 2006, WMS will receive a file from Management Information Systems (MIS) indicating the identical value for Language Spoken and Language Read to use for updating both the Language Spoken and Language Read fields. The exception will be for Language Code 9 (Sign Language). When the language code is 9, this code will be entered in the Language Spoken field, however, Code E (English) will be entered in the Language Read field. The State Data Exchange (SDX) will include codes for Language Spoken and Language Read when: A new Medicaid Supplemental Security Income (MSSI) case is created; A New York State Nutrition Improvement Program (NYSNIP) FS case is created; An MA case is converted to MSSI. If the NYSNIP FS case has no value for the SSA Foreign Language Code field, SDX will not update the Language Spoken or Language Read field and they will remain blank. For MSSI cases, SDX will update the Language Spoken and Language Read fields with Code E when there is no entry in at least one of the language fields. FIA Policy, Procedures and Training 4 Office of Procedures

5 Extension of Public Assistance (PA) and NPA Case Closing Clockdown (Morel) Day 1 is the first day of the closing clockdown transaction. In response to the Morel v. Giuliani lawsuit concerning the timely issuance of Aid Continuing (ATC) benefits, the clockdown period for PA and NPA case closings will be extended in most cases. Currently, the clockdown is 12 calendar days and the case closes on the 13th calendar day if no action is taken to stop the closing. In order to minimize the number of cases that would have to be manually reopened (due to ATC), WMS will clock down for up to 15 calendar days and close between the 13th and 16th calendar day (depending on the day of the month the 13th day falls) if no action is taken to stop the closing. If the 13th day falls within the month and the 14th through 16th days do not carry over into the following month, the closing will be processed on the 16th day. If the 13th day falls on the last day of the month, the closing will process on the 13th day. If the 13th day falls on the first day of the following month the closing will process on the 16th day. Examples: 13th day falls within the month 13th day is last day of month 13th day is within the following month A case closing clockdown begins on 2/1/06. The 13th calendar day is 2/13/06, since days 14 through 16 will continue in the same month, the clockdown period will be extended to the 16th calendar day and will process on 2/16/06. A case closing clockdown begins on 2/16/06. The 13th calendar day is 2/28/06. Since 2/28/06 is the last day of the month, the closing will process on 2/28/06. A case closing clockdown begins on 2/17/06. The 13th calendar day is 3/1/06. Since 3/1/06 is in the following month, the closing clockdown would extend to the 16th day and process on 3/4/06. This will accommodate ATC requests through the Fair Hearing interface that are received at the end of the clockdown period and will allow extra time to process the requests. The final PA benefit amount will continue to be prorated from the 12th day. Client Notice System (CNS) notices will continue to inform participants that their cases will be closed on the 13th day. In addition, this will only pertain to PA and NPA case closings. Cases with budget reductions and MA-only case closings will not be affected. FIA Policy, Procedures and Training 5 Office of Procedures

6 Change to Spina Bifida Budgeting Income Source Code 48 is exempt from PA budgeting unless the case type is SNCA or SNNC and the PA household size is one. Currently, Income Source Code 48 (Income from Spina Bifida) is exempt from budgeting for only Family Assistance (FA) and Safety Net Federally Participating (SNFP) case types and Food Stamp-only (FS) cases. However, income from Spina Bifida is budgeted as unearned income for PA if the suffix case type is Safety Net Cash Assistance (SNCA) or Safety Net Non-Cash (SNNC) regardless of the number of people in the PA suffix. A recent change to New York State regulations requires a system modification to the budgeting of income from Spina Bifida. Income from Spina Bifida will be exempt for all case situations except for a PA budget calculation where the: Case type is SNCA or SNNC; and Number in the PA suffix on the Household Screen (NSBL02) is equal to one. In this circumstance, the income will be budgeted as unearned income for PA. The income remains exempt for FS purposes. Automated Finger Imaging System (AFIS): Add New AFIS Exemption Indicator Value of P Fix to the Grant Breakdown (NQCS5J) Screen Edit Preventing Case Transfers to F15 A new AFIS Exemption Indicator value of P (Purged from AFIS) has been added to WMS. This indicator will be sent from the AFIS contractor (Sagem Morpho) to WMS via a weekly flag file. An AFIS record is purged from the AFIS database in the following instances: The AFIS record has been inactive for 12 months; The Local District resolves an AFIS match as an Administrative Error (Non-Fraud Match); Upon Local District request. Currently, in the WMS Grant Breakdown (NQCS5J) screen the system is incorrectly displaying a dollar amount of over 84,000 in the Amount Type field (FS-TOT-INC-AMT). This is happening when a PA Single Issue Grant is issued. A change has been made so that this field will display the correct amount or a space, whichever is applicable for the issuance code. On a monthly basis the Medical Insurance and Community Services Administration (MICSA) Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI) FS Office (F15) receives a report of Cases with More than Two Active Individuals. These are cases that were inadvertently transferred to F15 by other FS Offices. F15 cannot accept cases with more than two active individuals. This error causes F15 to transfer these cases back to the sending Center. To prevent this extra work, the following edit for Center transfers will be in place: FIA Policy, Procedures and Training 6 Office of Procedures

7 If F15 is entered in Element 022 (FS Responsible Center) of the TAD in any Undercare transaction, WMS will check the number of active (AC) (including single issue [SI] and sanction [SN] statuses) and applying (AP) individuals on the case. If the number of active or applying individuals is greater than two, the following host-level error will result: Cannot Transfer to F15 HH Size > 2. The above edit only applies in Undercare. REQUIRED ACTION Assignment of New State/Federal Charge Code Value Aliens in First Five Years When processing a Safety Net Assistance case in Applications or Undercare where the members of the case are aliens with less than five years in this country and the household does not include at least one child under 18 years of age or a pregnant woman, enter Code 68 in the State/Federal Charge field (Element 307 on the TAD). The date of entry into the United States must be entered in the State/Federal Charge Date field (Element 325 on the TAD). If the household consists of at least one child under 18 and/or a pregnant woman enter State/Federal Charge Code 60. Change Language Read and Language Spoken Fields to Required Fields Automated Finger Imaging System (AFIS): Add New AFIS Exemption Indicator Value of P Edit Preventing Case Transfers to F15 When processing a case in Applications or Undercare, TAD Elements 281 (Language Read) and 255 (Language Spoken) are required fields. Workers must enter the appropriate code after asking the applicant/participant the preferred language for written and oral communication. AFIS Exemption Indicator P indicates that the individual has a WMS history. The JOS/Worker must conduct a thorough WMS search to avoid assigning a duplicate CIN to an individual. AFIS Exemption Indicator P cannot be data entered by a user, however, it can be overwritten with any of the existing AFIS indicators. Do not attempt to transfer an NPA FS case to F15 if the case has more than two active individuals. Attempts to transfer cases to F15 where the household size is greater than two will result in an error. FIA Policy, Procedures and Training 7 Office of Procedures

8 PROGRAM IMPLICATIONS Paperless Office System (POS) Implications Model Center Implications Food Stamp Implications Extension of Public Assistance (PA) and NPA Case Closing Clockdown (Morel) Change to Spina Bifida Budgeting Medicaid Implications Assignment of New State/Federal Charge Code Value Aliens in First Five Years POS implications related to WMS Software Version Release are outlined in the POS Release Notes Version (See PB #06-38-SYS) There are no Model Center implications. The extended clockdown period will prevent additional months of FS Benefits from being authorized incorrectly. For NPA FS cases, income from Spina Bifida remains exempt from budgeting. Staff must ensure that the appropriate State/Fed Charge code is entered for alien households with pregnant women and/or children, as well as those without. LIMITED ENGLISH SPEAKING ABILITY (LESA) AND HEARING IMPAIRED IMPLICATIONS For Limited English Speaking Ability (LESA) and hearing impaired applicants/participants, make sure to obtain appropriate interpreter services in accordance with PD #05-37-OPE and PD #05-40-OPE. FAIR HEARING IMPLICATIONS Avoidance/ Resolution at Job Centers Conferences at Job Centers Ensure that all case actions are processed in accordance with current procedures and that electronic case files are kept up to date. Remember that applicants/participants must receive either adequate or timely and adequate notification of all actions taken on their case. An applicant/participant can request and receive a conference with a Fair Hearing and Conference (FH&C) AJOS/Supervisor I at any time. If an applicant/participant comes to the Job Center requesting a conference, the Receptionist must alert the FH&C Unit that the individual is waiting to be seen. FIA Policy, Procedures and Training 8 Office of Procedures

9 The FH&C AJOS/Supervisor I will listen to and evaluate the applicant/participant s complaint. After reviewing the case file and discussing the issue(s) with the JOS/Worker responsible for the case and/or the JOS/Worker s Supervisor, s/he will determine if the action taken was correct. If the determination is that the action taken was correct, the FH&C AJOS/Supervisor I will explain the reason for the determination to the applicant/participant. If the explanation is accepted, no further action is necessary. The AJOS/Supervisor I must complete a Conference Report (M-186a). If the determination is that the action taken was incorrect or correct but lacking the supporting documentation, the FH&C AJOS/Supervisor I will settle in conference (SIC), enter detailed case notes in NYCWAY and forward all verifying documentation submitted by the applicant/participant to the appropriate JOS/Worker for corrective action to be taken. In addition, if the adverse case action still shows on the Pending (08) screen in WMS, the AJOS/Supervisor I must prepare and submit a Fair Hearing/Case Update Data Entry Form (LDSS-3722) if the case has been granted aid continuing (ATC), to change the 02 to an 01, or a PA Recoupment Data Entry Form (LDSS-3573) to delete a recoupment. The M-186a must also be prepared. Should the applicant/participant elect to continue his/her appeal by requesting or proceeding to a Fair Hearing, already requested, the FH&C AJOS/Supervisor I is responsible for ensuring that further appeal is properly controlled and that appropriate follow-up action is taken in all phases of the Fair Hearing process. Conferences in an NPA FS Office If an applicant/participant comes to the NPA FS Office and requests a conference, the Receptionist must alert the Site Manager s designee that the applicant/participant is to be seen. If the applicant/participant contacts the Eligibility Specialist directly, advise the applicant/participant to call the Site Manager s designee. The Site Manager s designee will listen to and evaluate the applicant/participant s complaint regarding the action taken. After reviewing the documentation, case record and discussing the issue with the Group Supervisor/Eligibility Specialist, the Site Manager s designee will make a decision. The Site Manager s designee will decide to resolve or defend the case based on all factors and on whether the case action was processed correctly. FIA Policy, Procedures and Training 9 Office of Procedures

10 The Site Manager s designee is responsible for ensuring that further appeal by the applicant/participant through a Fair Hearing request is properly controlled and that appropriate follow-up action is taken in all phases of the Fair Hearing process. Evidence Packets at Job Centers Evidence Packets at NPA FS Offices All Evidence Packets must contain a detailed history, copies of relevant WMS screen printouts, other documentation relevant to the action taken and copies of NYCWAY Case Notes screens. All evidence packets must include the notices sent and any other pertinent information to support the Agency s action. REFERENCES SPP # SPP # SPP # SPP # SPP # SPP # SPP # SPP # SPP # SPP # Change to Spina Bifida Budgeting Assign New State/Federal Charge Code Value Aliens in First 5 Years (Rev. 5) Automated WMS Update to Language Fields via File Pass from HRA/MIS (Rev. 2) Extension of PA and NPA Case Closing Clockdown/Morel (Rev. 1) Edit Preventing Case Transfers to F15 Change Language Spoken/Read to Required Fields (Rev. 5) SDX Update to WMS Language Read and Language Spoken Fields (Rev. 3) Fix to Benefits Issuance Inquiry Screen NQCS5J AFIS: Add New AFIS Exemption Indicator Value of P Removal of Alien Registration Number Requirement for Battered Aliens RELATED ITEM PB #06-38-SYS POS Release Notes Version 10.1 FIA Policy, Procedures and Training 10 Office of Procedures